What is the difference between million and billion? One mighty say: ‘just an alphabet’. But that just an alphabet can make a lot of difference. And that’s why proper communication whether written or verbal is very important as miscommunication can lead to disasters. For the same reason extra care should be exercised while communicating important public health events as the consequences of miscommunication or ineffective communication could be huge.
Now, what would an epidemiologist or a physician call a person who travelled in a plane in which there was another person infected with Ebola virus? A confirmed case of Ebola? Really? It seems that at least ‘Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW), Govt. of India’ thinks so.
In a glaring example of negligent communication MoHFW issued a press note on August 8, 2014 which was published on Press Information Bureau’s website (PIB) informing that a CONFIRMED case of Ebola Viral Disease (EVD) arrived in India on 20 July 2014 and been monitored by health officials since then. The information of the case was received from World Health organization (WHO). It further said that the person was traced to Dwarka in south-west New Delhi and found to be healthy. He was provided with all necessary guidelines for self-monitoring and asked to report to the authorities in case of manifestation of symptoms. The same day WHO declared 2014 Ebola outbreak in East Africa as Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).
As the press note was released it created major concerns not just about the arrival of virus in India but as to why this important information was not released for 19 days? Even the same was not informed to Indian Parliament on August 6, 2014 when the Minister of Health & Family Welfare Dr. Harsh Vardhan made a statement in both houses. Why the same was informed only when WHO declared the outbreak as PHEIC?
On August 9, 2014 i.e. the next day MoHFW issued another statement on PIB’s website in which Dr Harsh Vardhan clarified that India does not have any confirmed or even suspected Ebola virus affected person. It further said that the WHO had informed that one Indian passenger had travelled on the same flight in which Ebola virus patient (a foreign national) was travelling from Monrovia to Lagos. This Indian passenger is now back in India. He is healthy, fit and fine and his health is being regularly monitored.
This clearly shows that the statement issued on August 8, 2014 informing that a CONFIRMED case of Ebola Viral Disease (EVD) was arrived in India on 20 July 2014 was factually incorrect. This was a major negligence in communication keeping in view the seriousness and mortality associated with Ebola outbreak and gravity of consequences of such miscommunication. This is beyond comprehension how could a person who was just travelling in a plane in which there was another confirmed case of Ebola was labelled as a confirmed case of Ebola in the official communication of MoHFW? Either the official(s) who prepared the note do not understand the difference or enough care was not taken during writing of the note and the same was not checked before releasing it.
In another incident of careless press note drafting just 3 days before this incident, MoHFW in another press note wrote ‘child mortality’ as ‘child morality’. One can blame this to auto correction but the twitter handle of MoHFW also repeated the mistake without any application of mind.
No comments:
Post a Comment